Books with author Ron Keith

While Hal and Abigail fly off on a quick mission, seven-year-old Travis spends a snowy evening with his 'cousins' Melinda and Mason. And what better way to pass the time than Uncle Robbie telling stories in front of the fire? With two yarns centered around Christmas, a mysterious bag under the water, a box of photos with a creepy presence, a couple of romantic tales, and an epic ogre adventure, it's sure to be an interesting night with this collection of short stories!

Shapeshifters. Mermaids. And a shapeshifting mermaid!A lake deep in the woods is home to beautiful, enchanting creatures known as the miengu water spirits. They're like mermaids but have a dark and mysterious side. One of them, Jolie, was born a shapeshifter like Hal and his friends, and she can walk on land. Their task? To bring her home.Sounds simple enough.It's said the miengu can heal the sick, so Jolie will be an invaluable asset around the village if she agrees to stay awhile. Then again, it's also said these lake people are sirens, using their enchanting beauty to lure ships onto rocks.While she appears sweet-natured on the surface, there's definitely more to her than meets the eye. The boys are besotted and can't decide if she's delightful... or deadly.

A magical fantasy adventure with shapeshifters and creatures from myth and legend. Suitable for all readers 9 and up. Parents, read this with your children!A mysterious storm cloud is sweeping across the landscape like a wall of dust. With villages being engulfed, Miss Simone orders the evacuation of Carter and gathers an army of shapeshifters to investigate the crisis. But nobody returns from the Death Storm to file a report. It seems New Earth's fate is to be smothered by an unstoppable force of nature.But the real nightmare begins after the storm has passed by. Everything is different. People are changed. And only a very small handful of residents can see it... DEATH STORM is the fifth installment in the Island of Fog Legacies series. Good, clean, sometimes scary fun for young readers that adults can enjoy as well.

Hal and his friends have arrived in a magical world full of mythical creatures. But there's no time to rest. As shapeshifters, important and dangerous missions lie ahead!Dewey quickly feels the pressure of dealing with ornery centaurs. Meanwhile, Lauren and Hal are quaking in their shoes, for the town in the north is under constant attack from harpies and dragons.These vicious creatures must somehow be reasoned with and persuaded not to plunder and steal, and most importantly, not to eat humans! The trouble is, neither harpies nor dragons are interested in negotiating.The shapeshifters join forces to deal with these serious issues. They end up in the heart of dragon country, down in the Labyrinth of Fire beneath an oozing volcano. Somehow, they must make the dragons see the error of their ways.Their quest forces them to question the extent of their shapeshifting abilities... and this leads to a shocking discovery that is likely to start a war.

Shapeshifters Hal, Robbie, Abigail, and Emily are trapped in the old world with no magic, no means to get home... and no shapeshifting ability!As if that's not bad enough, Emily is sick and worsening by the hour. They have to make it to safety soon. But where is safe? The abandoned city? Their old island?The desperate shapeshifters face an enemy worse than dragons and other mythical creatures – people! But not just ordinary people. Driven crazy by a terrible virus more than a decade before, and eking out a life on the deserted streets ever since, the only way for these gangs to survive is to hunt and scavenge. Known as scrags, and marked by lesions and scars, they're easy to recognize... and best avoided.Easier said than done.

A castle on a cliff overtaken by monsters – and a deadly battle on the beach.The hostage crisis is over, but Molly the gorgon and Blair the pheonix remain in the very firm clutches of Queen Bee and her Swarm. Not only that, but the determined scrags have discovered the secret to becoming shapeshifters!Hal and his friends set out to infiltrate the Swarm's hideout, a castle perched on the cliff over the coastal town of Brodon. But the confined spaces make it difficult to transform, and Hal resorts to secrecy and sabotage rather than outright dragon mayhem.A battle is inevitable, though, and the shapeshifters will have to join forces to confront the newly transformed scrag monsters of Brodon. In the epic conclusion to a two-part story, the young heroes will have to fight tooth and claw to protect the world from gangs of villainous mythical creatures...

A magical fantasy adventure with shapeshifters and creatures from myth and legend. Suitable for all readers 9 and up. Parents, read this with your children!Young shapeshifters Travis and Melinda are tasked with visiting the infamous Haunted Fortress to uncover its dark secrets. The residents of Hemlock, a small seaside village, have been seeing a phantom figure on and off for the past two hundred years. The phantom has many names – Screeching Witch, Fiery Goddess, Ghoulish Ghost, and Mechanical Lady for starters – but she's mostly known as the Snake Lady, a naga who appears out of thin air and then vanishes again.The fortress is something to behold, floating above the sea just off the coast. And what's with the block of ice in the main chamber? Not only does it refuse to melt despite repeated attempts at thawing, the naga folk in the nearby woods suggest it contains a perfectly preserved corpse and should be left well alone.Miss Simone disagrees. With Travis as a super-heated cherufe and Melinda as a naga girl, their two-pronged mission is to melt the ice and debunk the phantom...HAUNTED FORTRESS is the fourth installment in the Island of Fog Legacies series. Good, clean, sometimes scary fun for young readers but not too advanced for adults to enjoy as well.

Mythical creatures, shapeshifters, and magic – a gripping fantasy series for fans of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Narnia.A hidden island shrouded in fog. That unseen place Out There on the mainland where something terrible happened years ago. Only a handful of people left in the world...Or so the children are told.When Hal and Robbie make an astonishing discovery in the woods, they realize the adults of the small community have a dark secret. And the arrival of a mysterious woman at school proves it. Who is she? Where on earth did she come from? The classmates are more determined than ever to find out what their parents are hiding.But their lives are turned upside down when a girl in class reveals a secret. According to her, the children are slowly changing into monsters of myth and legend! Are they freaks of nature, or subjects of a sinister experiment?"I recommend these books. Read them with your children." —NYT bestselling author Piers Anthony

The young shapeshifters ARE BACK in their 11th fantasy adventure!When Miss Simone sends Hal and his friends on a mission to find the fabled edge of the world, they set sail with a crew of goblins and soon run afoul of a sea monster. But instead of sinking to the bottom of the ocean, their crippled ship is carried by a giant turtle to a place beyond their wildest dreams.So begins their journey to a magical place inhabited by immortals and littered with shipwrecks and bones. There's a very good reason why nobody has ever returned to tell the tale of Haven...Full of wondrous (and terrifying) creatures, the eleventh book in the magical Island of Fog fantasy series explores the legends of eastern yokai folklore and delivers action and excitement for middle-grade readers and up. This is a complete story in itself, a great place to jump in and meet the young shapeshifters if you haven't read the other books in the series.

What could a witch possibly want with a kraken's eyeball? It doesn't even fit in her cauldron!The story goes that a bold captain and his crew battled a sea monster and gouged out its eye. It would have been the catch of the century if they'd made it back alive. Instead, all that remained was a lifeboat carrying four dead men and their ghastly treasure.When the giant eyeball goes missing from the science laboratory, Hal and his shapeshifter friends follow the trail to Madame Frost, a sinister witch in the woods who has devised a way to peek at events from the distant past . . .Events that are best forgotten.The twelfth Island of Fog book can be enjoyed as a standalone fantasy adventure as well as the next installment in the series. A witch's magical spells, a mysterious tower on a cliff, ghostly meddling in history – and more than one jaw-dropping twist!Coming May 15, 2020.

Magic has been nullified by a phoenix. Now shapeshifters are as ordinary as everyone else.But there's hope. To the east lies Bad Rock Gulch where goblins mine for a special kind of energy. This place has a cavern deep underground known as the Chamber of Ghosts where the shapeshifters might be able to replenish their magic – to recharge. Problem is, the chamber is haunted.It's here that Hal receives a warning his life is in danger. What unfolds changes his perspective on everything he knows, and he soon finds himself alone, trying to persuade his friends to see things his way. Set on a course of action that everyone thinks is foolhardy and dangerous, he's plagued by doubt but resolves to see it through no matter what...With mountain trolls, a village of werewolves, underground ghosts, a boy from the past, and a trio of thundering helicopters carrying a cargo that will change the world, the sixth book in the series literally goes out with a bang.

"Whisper Mountain is the lair of the beast," say the frightened mountain elves. "Beware the Shadow Demon, for it will hunt you down and eat you alive."Whisper Mountain gets its name from the cries of ghosts echoing down its slopes, the souls of victims who have run afoul of the demon. Who in their right mind would venture into the deserted elfin temple?But, according to a crazy old soothsayer, the mountain is the "key to everything."Miss Simone agrees the mountain is worth investigating, but as leader of the village, she has more immediate problems to deal with. A squad of armed soldiers has just crossed over from the old world, bringing with them the strong possibility of an industrialized, technologically advanced human invasion that threatens the magical land forever.The shapeshifters set off to the mountain, hoping all this talk of demons and ghosts is just superstitious nonsense. What they find there surprises everybody...